Many commentators are overflowed with compassion for Ukraine. Yet they are silent on the Saudi Arabian bombing of civilians in Yemen. The silence of the criminal policy of the Israeli government in Palestine is even more deafening. The Kurds are forgotten. The Myanmar military repression has dropped from the media headlines.
Nobody expects a capitalist diplomat or politician to be strictly truthful, any more than that virtue is expected of the advertiser boosting the sales of his products.
People are still disposed to believe that if the leaders of the nations were better men, “men of goodwill” the world would be a better place. Capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and on cut-throat competition to sell the goods and realise the profit. The war will make the competition of the industrial nations more intense than ever, and not all the schemes and hopes of the statesmen will turn that savage scramble into a better Europe.
A brief study of the causes of modern war proves that war is an essential part of capitalism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to war. Nevertheless, there have been serious misconceptions in following out the consequences of this conclusion so far as they apply to the struggle against war. The most serious mistake made in the attempted struggle against war comes from the widespread belief that this struggle is somehow “independent” of the class struggle in general. Acting on this belief, attempts are made to build up all kinds of peace movements and pacifist organisations. The only way to get rid of war is to remove the cause of war. In order to build a genuine anti-war movement, it is our duty to expose these pie-in-the-sky peace proposals.
War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is true. War is a symptom and result, of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. Since war is inseparable from capitalism it follows that the “abolition” of war is possible only through the overthrow of capitalism. The only way to be against war is to campaign against the causes of war. It therefore follows that the only possible struggle AGAINST war is the struggle FOR socialism. By overthrowing the capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with a socialist economy, it will remove the causes of war. Under socialism, there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war.
We pointed out that the League of Nations and then the United Nations was bound to fail, since it did not put an end to the real causes of war: —the intense struggle for world trade which capitalism forces upon rival sections of the capitalist class. We urged then, as we do now, that the only way to peace is to get rid of these rivalries which are inherent in capitalism, by abolishing capitalism itself, and by establishing a new social system—socialism. Again we issue a warning to our fellow workers of being led up a blind alley in another futile quest for permanent peace.
In a capitalist society, there are TWO CLASSES, and between these two classes a persistent struggle and clash of interests. The capitalist class owns the means of production and distribution and employs the working class which, being propertyless, must work for the advantage of the owners, i.e., to produce profits for them. Over the questions of wages and working conditions, the capitalists and workers are in constant conflict. This class struggle, evident within every capitalist state, is ignored or dismissed as unimportant by the federalists. However, so long as it continues to exist the world cannot possibly become one community.
Furthermore, in a capitalist society owing to the existence of private property and the consequent production of goods SOLELY for profit, the world is one big jumble of conflicting capitalist interests. Wars are the result of these conflicting interests.
Capitalism is by nature competitive and monopolistic. Different sections of the capitalist class—which to prosper must make profits—compete with each other to obtain monopolies of markets, monopolies of raw materials and monopolies of fields for investments. It is partly for the purpose of protecting or furthering these capitalist interests that the gigantic armed forces of the states exist; and the great powers annex territories, not so that the vanquished natives may benefit, but so that the interests of their capitalists can be developed without interference.
If, as often happens, the flow of profits going to capitalists is interfered with by competing sections of the capitalist class, quarrels break out, and, when other means fail, it is by force that differences are settled.
Developing capitalism has led to the growth of international trading blocs and cartels, but this has not diminished the rivalries between groups of capitalists. On the contrary, it has led to an intensification of those rivalries, for now capitalists of different nationalities work together in exploiting spheres of influence in order that a firmer monopoly may be obtained to the disadvantage of rival groups.
Capitalism FORCES this “cut-throat competition,” this struggle for spheres of influence upon the different sections of the capitalist class. It is, therefore, capitalism that gives rise to wars. We repeat that to end the war, its cause must be abolished. Until capitalism is swept away, all the forces making for armed conflicts will be at work. Attempts to clamp down these forces are doomed to failure. We urge the working class, therefore, not to waste its time on so-called solutions which, leaving untouched the causes of war, cannot possibly put an end to it. Only when capitalism has been overthrown and socialism established will the causes of war—production for profit, trade and commercial rivalries—be removed.
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